BACKGROUND AND HISTORY

PROTON was introduced in 1979, when Tun Mahathir Muhamad is the Deputy Prime
Minister. Tun Mahathir Mohamad is the one who gave the idea of establishing an automotive
assembling and manufacturing industry in Malaysia. Proton is a Malaysian Automotive
company and automobile corporation active in automobile design, manufacturing ,
distribution and sales. Proton was established in 1983, the company is headquartered in
Shah Alam, Selangor. PROTON produces a wide range of vehicles such as the Proton Gen
Two, Proton Hero, Proton Saga, Proton Wire, Proton Perdana, Proton Satria and more.
Proton is an acronym of Bahasa Malaysia that is “Perusahaan Otomobil Nasional” (National
Automobile Company). Proton was originally, owned in majority by HICOM, with minority
stakes being held by Mitsubishi Group members. Mitsubishi had divested their stake in
Proton to “Khazanah Nasional” by 2005. Proton was fully acquired by DRB-HICOM in 2012.
DRB-HICOM announced plans to sell a 49.9% stake in Proton and 51% stake in Lotus to
Geely Automobile Holdings in May 2017. It was signed in June 2017 and sine then Lotus
eased to be a unit of Proton. In domestic market, Proton predominantly reliant and presently
undergoing a transformation process as part of a long-term turnaround plan. HICOM parent
company has to bear the huge losses of Proton since its inceptional due to technical costs,
components, , and technology from other country that is Japan although Proton has
successfully entered the Malaysian market.
NATURE OF BUSINESS

Proton is the national car manufacture set up to produce cars and revenue use to
boost the Malaysian economy. Proton is a profitable company. Proton is known as buy and
sell businesses. They make profit by selling the products at lower price because they are
focusing on the local people that is the Malaysian people to buy the car. Proton producing
average of quality car and sale it with affordable price in Malaysia marketing such as Proton
Wira and Proton Saga which contributing the high sales and revenue to Proton. Besides
that, Proton also had listed in Bursa Malaysia and gaining more revenue with the majority
market shared with high price. Proton also opens many job opportunities to the Malaysian
people. For Proton business objective include the development of indigenous research and
development capabilities and design capabilities as well as a presence in the global market
with using the resources , technology, innovation and design capabilities made available by
Proton. For the competitors , however Proton will face competition with ther cars high
qualities brand such as Toyota, but Proton secure their place and still get high sales of cars
by selling it with lower price but high qualities equivalent with Malaysian people ability to
purchase.
PROTON SWOT ANALYSIS

STRENGTHS WEAKNESS

- Value for money - Lack of expertise

- easily available - Lack of international operations

OPPORTUNITIES THREATS

- Expanding their marketing - Competitors

- R & D Development - Fast changing and advanced engineering

technology

Table 1:SWOT analysis of PROTON Holdings Berhad

1. STRENGHTS
(a) Value For Money
PROTON is well known as a budget car for Malaysian people. Proton was
organization offered the cars which is available for the lower wage people, but
they also mainly targeted to the upper middle class society. The cost of Proton
cars have been budgeted in a way that they have great technology but not over
the top. the customers get what they paid of based on their ability to buy and
wage per month. Mostly the customers are satisfied with the product because it is
worth to buy.

(b) Easily Available

Proton car is Malaysian automotive company and automobile corporation, this car
are easy to get or purchase in our own country. Customers do not need to wait
for months to get the car , they can just go to the official Proton Holdings Berhad
to purchase or to see display of the cars. Besides , Proton can easily purchase at
 any country because they have their own factories at the other country such as
China, Indonesia, Vietnam and United Kingdom. The overseas customers also
can purchase this car as they can find the car easily in their countries.

2. WEEKNESS
(a) Lack of expertise
Lack of expertise means that the company are producing limited products due to
their inability of the company such as their employee is lack of knowledge to
innovate or create a new branding with high technology new car models. As
Proton cars are producing cars based on other leading international brand cars
which probably wil mess up their brands line, Proton’s reputation which might
impact comsumer’s perspective towards products.

(b) Lack of international operations

The company would face some human resource issues because of the
company's incapacity, such as being unable to retain and cultivate talent. This
would lead to higher manufacturing costs for PROTON as well as employee
inexperience will also generate low product quality. It could thus jeopardize the
reputation of PROTON, which could have an impact on the perspectives of
consumers towards products. Furthermore, PROTON will have a lack of
international operations due to the intense competition on the global market as
well as the product quality issues.

3. OPPORTUNITIES
(a) Expanding their marketing
Proton have the opportunities to expand their marketing around the world. Proton
Holdings should take the opportunities to expend their company in another
country such as big markets of India and USA in order to get more customers.
Besides, to expand their company , the Proton company should launch area
specific models to help them garner a strong markets and compete with the other
products. They can also expand more in their home market through more options
as well as better advertisement
 (b) R & D Development
Proton have the opportunity to do R&D development. Proton can introduce new
other kinds of vehicles such as luxury cars and hybrid electrical type of cars.
Proton can work on releasing some cars that are high of budget. This will attract
the upper class of society and this will help Proton growth more because having a
variety of product in a company will help a lot. Proton need to lauch a new
hybrind types of electrical cars that are eco-friendly and helps others who are in a
tight budget to buy fuel as the fuel price keep increasing.

4. THREATS
(a) Competitors
Produa will face many competitiors from other countries as the other country also
did produced their own local car brand. Beside that, Malaysia also produce the
new car branding such as Perodua. Competitors of Proton cars like Perodua are
rising and they are selling more cars. In order Proton to maintain Produa selling,
Produa must also constantly do innovation when producing their cars. Besides
that, the foreign brands are approaching the Malaysian market because of the big
market as the foreign brands also did produce Hybrid cars with affordable price
and eco-friendly such as Hyundai. This will make the demand on Malaysia Proton
cars are decreasing.

(b) Fast changing and advanced engineering technology

Due to the fast changing and advance engineering technology, the other brands
are up-to-date technology when producing their cars such as Hyundai that they
already produce Hyundai Hybrid type of that are eco-friendly. Meanwhile, Proton
are still producing cars that are not up-to-date technology. Proton are still using
the old technology to produce cars. Therefore, this will lead Proton to confront the
issues of lack of technology and qualities issue.